Introduction
A Aristides guitar is not what it seems at first sight. At first sight it looks like a conventional solid-body electric guitar. At first hearing you'll notice this is something completely different. In fact Aristides guitars are a radical departure from not only wood but also from the composite materials used in the guitar industry up to this date.

Since the first solid-body electric guitars (which weren't made out of wood either, think of the famous 'fryin' pan from Rickenbacker), luthiers have tried to come up with alternatives for using wood. Although wood has the looks, there are several obvious reasons for not using this material.

First of all, wood is a very inconsistent and inhomogeneous material. Beware of those dead spots and warped necks when you buy a wooden guitar!

Secondly, wood is everlasting unstable. It will never stop moving when exposed to external tensions (strings!) and to changes in temperature and humidity. Wood that has been dried very well, still contains around and about 8 % of water. This percentage of water in wood will never stop fluctuating due to changes in the surrounding climate and thus wood will never stop moving.

Last but not least, there is the environmental issue. Consider this: every second 5,500 m2 (!) of forest is destroyed. Since over the last 50 years more than half of all the forests on earth have been destroyed, it would make sense to look for alternatives. Although the music industry is not the biggest consumer of trees, it's not setting a good example either like other industries already have done (think of sports gear). Some say that wood is 'alive'. To us trees are alive ...


Arium
So, why hasn't anybody up to this date really succeeded in coming up with a material that would really make a difference in guitar manufacturing. Although the constructional properties of composite materials are many times better than wood, they did not break the waves for one reason: a poor sound because of lack of resonance. The resonance of a material is the property that prolongs sounds by vibration. Absorption, its acoustic counterpart, is the property that absorbs vibrational energy.

Up to this date composite materials used in the music industry consist of graphite (carbon fibres) and epoxy resins. Graphite is used for its strength and stiffness, and epoxy is used to surround and keep in place the graphite. Without epoxy you would only have a thin skeleton of graphite. For a good sound you need a strong and stiff skeleton, which is provided by graphite, but you also need a surrounding body with lots of resonance. Because of its tenacity, epoxy lacks enough resonance and has too much absorption. So epoxy-graphite composites have very good mechanical properties but not so good acoustic properties.

So fifteen years ago a group of young engineers of the Delft University of Technology set out to develop a composite material focusing on acoustics in general and resonance in particular. They looked for a material that would equal or even surpass the resonance properties of wood. To make a long story short: they did this by incorporating a ceramic cell structure into the composite material. Thus Arium was born. Other ingredients complete the composite, but a good Chef de Cuisine doesn't tell all his secrets! The ceramic cell structure gives Arium an enormous resonance and sustain. For example, the natural unamplified sustain of the low E-string of a Aristides guitar is at least 45 seconds. Compared to the 30 seconds of a Stratocasterª or the 40 seconds of a heavy Les Paul (specially designed for sustain!) that is quite long. In fact we haven't noticed one guitar with a longer sustain yet.

Traditionally a guitar consists of a separate neck and body that are glued or bolted together. In a Aristides guitar made of Arium they form a logical whole that will not only give a guitar the obvious constructional advantages, but also it will minimize the loss of vibrational energy at the neck-body joint. This also contributes to the resonance and sustain a lot.

Furthermore, an one piece construction enables a 'flying heel' neck-body transition for more playing comfort at the higher frets.


Ceramics
Ceramics are the main ingredient of Arium. So here's a little break introducing ceramics.

Ceramics are as old as mankind. Think of all those pots and pans made of clay. Think of your wine glass.

In order to protect space crafts under extreme conditions, 'rocket scientists' , mostly from NASA, developed over the last forty years ceramics with top quality properties like:

• high temperature resistance;

• high compressive strength;

• good corrosion resistance;

• and extremely abrasion resistant.

The only material that supersedes these technical ceramics with these properties is diamond. So, we're not talkin' china here, although it's also ceramic. By the way, some ceramics are more expensive than gold!

The applications of these new ceramics were:

• wherever cavitation occurred;

• in components subjected to excessive wear;

• in components requiring long lasting high precision;

• in components used at high temperature;

• and in components used in aggressive media.

From then on ceramics could be used for special products that needed a top quality like Space Shuttles and ...

The 'rocket & roll scientists' of Aristides discovered an unexpected property of ceramics: it's acoustic qualities. Well not really unexpected: think of your singing wine glass! Even better than very well dried tonal wood, ceramics don't absorb so much the vibrations of sound as most materials do. They have a crystal clear sound and a brilliant tone of their own (crystal is also ceramic!).

So Aristides thought of making a compound with ceramics simulating the cell structure of wood. This was done by using ceramic 'microspheres'. Think of them as very little glass bubbles. This recipe and the overall production method are worldwide patented as Arium. One big advantage compared to wood is the non-existence of water in the ceramic cells. So, say goodbye to instability. Apart from the water, wood is anisotropic and inhomogeneous, which causes dead tonal spots, the killing of certain harmonics, warped necks and a lot more things those vintage freaks didn't warn you about. Arium lacks those spurious, energy-robbing vibrations that make wood necks selectively deaden some notes and harmonics.


Graphite
Another important ingredient of Arium is graphite. This ultra-strong fibre also originates from space engineering. Since graphite is three times stronger and stiffer than an equivalent weight of steel or aluminum, and because strength and stiffness can be engineered according to anticipated stress by orienting fibre direction, composite engineers have a precise control over their material. Those key requirements for a guitar neck, strength and stiffness, minimize the loss of vibrational energy and thus increase the tonal sustain. Apart from this, graphite is also very stable and unaffected by the outside climate. It keeps your guitar in tune everywhere. From now on you can play your guitar in space! Beam me up, Scotty ...


Sound characteristics
Due to the stiffness of the instrument and the one piece construction, loss of vibrational energy is minimized. You immediately notice that when you hear the attack and the response of a Aristides guitar. The rigid structure contributes definition and sparkle to a very rich sound. Although you could describe the sound of Arium as transparent and clear, it's certainly not cold or metallic. It can actually sounds quite warm and 'alive'. The fundamental tones and its harmonics are more balanced and have a longer 'life' than with wood. When played with other instruments a Aristides won't be absorbed as much as its unbalanced wooden counterparts. The definition of the separate strings is very much in balance. Chords can cut through sound barriers without losing certain tones and you'll be able to hear yourself a lot better in the studio or on stage. Furthermore, due to the tonal stability of Arium you can play with a lot of distortion without losing that definition. Now you can sound dirty without sounding muddy.

Last but not least, Arium is simply louder than wood. Pump up the volume!